


Open Lies

by Bushwah



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Altered Mental States, Bechdel Test Fail, Canonical Child Abuse, Complete, Epic Fail, Gaming, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internet, Missing Scene, One Shot, POV First Person, Past Tense, Wordcount: 100-1.000, Wordcount: 100-2.000, Wordcount: 500-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 13:53:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1187694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bushwah/pseuds/Bushwah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kalluto looks for a game to play.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open Lies

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Heh Killua](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1828018) by [dadou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dadou/pseuds/dadou). 



I've finished the last of the movies and am glancing at every shadow, expecting it to morph, or move, or vanish suddenly into the dark. I play songs, music videos, lullabies, rap, doesn't matter which ones, until I begin to regain a semblance of calm and my claws aren't coming out randomly at night noises. My goosebumps-covered flesh still trembles, but my face is composed, and my hands no longer shake. I continue playing songs, domino chains, cat videos. _If you Laugh you Lose_. Cartoons. My skin becomes still, and I control my muscles again. My mind, however, is still nearly incoherent with fear. _You have to cope, dammit!_

And so I move my numb hands, I move on to a game, doesn't matter which one, and start moving a character. I'm looking for the damage indicator when I realize it's a dating simulator. _Even when I'm playing, I just can't think of anything but killing._ I'm not up for romance tonight, so I keep looking. _I should be safe with this one_... It advertises itself as "an interactive/roleplay type cooperation-based game." Turns out it's Prisoner's Dilemma style, and I'm about to give up and go back to music videos when I see a merc game, low-gore, "just you and your sword against the world." That's like my life, except I bet in the game I won't have claws.

I cruise in, start killing things. I don't notice until I've killed three of them that they're _sheep_ , and some farmer comes over and starts yelling that I've ruined his livelihood. The other farmers come in with their crooks, and though I could destroy any group of farmers at a rate of approximately point three seconds per, my hands dart across the keyboard and nothing happens. The farmer starts swearing at my dead body, I look at the history and he's been doing it all along. By the quality of the grammar involved, I guess that he's a player, which means, to add insult to injury, that I've just wasted at the very least hours of someone's work. I have an irrational impulse to cry.

I don't, of course. I've had my bones broken without moving a muscle. I've slept through worse tortures than you've ever felt in your waking hours. I'm about to close the computer to get some much-needed sleep when I remember the nightmares. It's the second night I've gone without, and even on me it starts to tell around then. I consider leaving my room, but looking at the clock, I realize that no one would be awake to greet me anyway. No one would wake up for me. No one really knows about the youngest son. Not Mother, not Father, or my brothers, or even myself. No one but the people I kill. I can see their faces now. They don't fear me... they don't live long enough. They don't even know who I am.

Someday it will be different. Someday, the world will know the name of Kalluto Zoldyck.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a throwaway line in another fanfic about Killua being forced to watch "A Nightmare on Elm Street" when he was little. Someday I'll probably track it down and make a proper citation...


End file.
